ASIA CLEAN ENERGY SUMMIT 2019

Interview with Mr Girish Tanti

Mr Girish Tanti, Co-founder and Board member of Suzlon Energy- India’s largest and one of the most admired wind energy companies in the world. He led the effort to set up Suzlon’s technology and innovation centres across Europe with a primary aim to be self-reliant in technology.

Girish is one of the panel speakers at the ACES Clean Energy Leaders' Dialogue. He will be speaking on how countries need to have a diversified energy portfolio with a focus on decarbonisation to move towards sustainable energy.

Q. What is your view of the drive towards clean energy in Asia today and the resulting impact on the region?

For Asia as a whole, including Central Asia, renewable energy capacity has nearly doubled over the past five years, reaching 918GW in 2017. China and India were the biggest contributors to the increase. China has already exceeded their target of 105GW of solar power and will exceed 210GW by 2020. China has really pushed the envelope to drive clean energy adoption. Likewise, India too has set out a clear target of 175GW of renewable energy capacity addition by 2022, which has been recently enhanced to 227GW. The Indian government is driving a conducive environment to help achieve these targets. India contributed 10% and China nearly half the growth in global renewable energy capacity during 2017. SE Asia is in the initial stages of adoption of clean energy. Some countries have set their targets and are working to drive them though, while others are still in the discovery stage and have yet to make a meaningful contribution.

SE Asia needs to scale up and reach significant proportions soon to make an impact to counter the damage from climate change and drive the energy diversification agenda.

Q. What do you think Asia’s renewable energy landscape will look like in the next five years?

The share of renewables in global power consumption will increase to almost 30% in 2023 from 24% in 2017, according to the International Energy Agency's (IEA). China, Japan and India will make up 20% of the total global market through 2023. Asia will be responsible for a little over 50 per cent of global renewable energy growth, adding 600GW of clean energy to become the largest consumer of green energy in the world, overtaking the EU.

In SE Asia, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are major markets with combined solar capacity additions expected to triple in the next five years, while wind capacity additions are expected to grow five-fold in the same period. Driving policies and implementing them effectively for making clean energy transition is very critical for all countries. Sometimes, it can have a temporary economic impact but that would be out-weighed by the long term positives benefits.

Q. What is your company/organization planning next for the growing clean energy in Asia?

Suzlon being one of the largest Wind Power OEM in Asia is committed to work with stakeholders across various geographies to help countries make the transition to clean energy. With our global R&D, we have developed state-of-the-art wind turbine technologies and adopted them to locations and conditions across geographies. In Asia, Suzlon has installed ~12GW of wind power captivity. We hold the leadership position in India with a market share of 35%.

From SE Asia perspective, we are fully committed to contributing to the renewable energy vision of these countries. Our geographic proximity, vast experience in the region combined with our offering of world-class products and turnkey projects, make us one of the prime driver of renewable energy in Asia. We want to engage extensively in the region to push size and scale of the industry here. Additionally, we would like to partner with utilities and financial players in the region who would like to grow internationally – we can help them scale up their renewable energy asset base beyond their home countries to markets like India and other SE Asian countries.